KEVIN ELWORTH LIVE

We’ve been here for nearly two days now and are just about as overwhelmed as we can get. The city is more beautiful than we remembered, but it is also so busy and so huge. The roads are strange and we have gotten lost quite a few times- thanks to GPS not for to long though. We went to a church downtown this morning and were encouraged by that. This church was the church that we found when we came on our survey trip in 2006. The missionary working with the church is no longer here, but the pastor is doing a great job and it working hard to see it grow.

We have been able to look at a few houses but nothing yet. We found an area of town that we really feel in love with. It’s more of a suburb, the houses are nice and they are close to a preschool that looks real sharp. We’ll be checking out a few others today and hopefully will be able to make a concrete decision within just a few days.

Now for the big news. Starbucks! That’s right. We have one here in town and that made my day. Haven’t been there yet, but you all know how much of a coffee freak I am so rest assured it won’t be long.

Keep us in your prayers, we covet them more each day.

Well that’s it then. Tomorrow we will be Mexicans, or something like that. We’ll get up early and head out around 830 and hopefully arrive in Zacatecas at about 3PM or so. I’m still a bit nervous about driving down there. I have done it a bit before but not 350 miles worth. Should be fun. Cris is not so excited about crossing the border with our stuff. We are trying our best to look on vacation, but it’s hard when the car is packed to the gills with stuff on top too.

Today I promised Cris a day off, so we spent an extra day here in McAllen at a nice hotel and just focused on Austin for the day. He’s been feeling pretty insecure with all the changes, so we went to the park and played a lot. He never does well when we move like this. Just yesterday he started with some cold symptoms. Runny nose and really fussy, but who can blame the boy he’s only 16 months and will have already lived in three different countries, how many of you can say that?!

I also promised Cris a good steak dinner. She’s been begging me for a long time, so Logans Roadhouse called our name and she loved it. She deserved it too.

Well i better hit the sack. It’s getting way late and tomorrow is going to be a long fun day.

We appreciate you guys.

Today was a rough busy day. I had to go unload our trailer into our storage home until we can get a trailer to get it into Mexico. On Sunday when we loaded all our stuff it was cake for us. We had seven people show up to help load it all. I stood in the trailer while they brought everything to me. Not so today. Every box, all by hand, all by me. It was a lot of work, but i’m thankful i had capable hands to do the work. It all fit just fine into the small 5X10 tin box. Hopefully it won’t stay there long though. We plan to bring everything into Mexico in early December pending God’s provision of a trailer.

After i finished all that, i came back to the hotel to get Cris and Austin and go across the border to get our paperwork. I’ve spent a lot of time at the US/Mexican border and know that it can take a lot of time to get what you need, so rather than wait until the day we travel i thought it best to get it taken care of early, and i’m glad i did. It should have only taken about 20 minutes, at least that’s what everybody around me was taking. They would come it, pay their fees, get their stamp and be gone. Not so for us. I think it must have something to do with the fact that we are missionaries. It took us about 3 hours. Something was wrong in their system with the form that we had gotten for Austin. Someone else already had that number, so rather than just have us fill out a new form and then fix their error later, they made us wait until they had their issue fixed, and that took them three long hours. But thankfully now we have all our paperwork done and Friday we will be able to just pack up and get on our way. O what fun! We are only 350 miles from home.

We have reached the border. 900 miles of driving over two days, we are completely exhausted and ready for a good night sleep and a break. Hopefully we’ll get the good night sleep tonight but the break, not sure when that will happen.

Austin is worn out to the max and I don’t think he’ll ever want to get into a car again after this trip. Unfortunately we have to make this same trip at the end of November to head back for a mission conference in Kansas City. Poor kid. There is a special place in heaven for missionary kids that’s for sure.

We’ll spend Wednesday and Thursday here as well before finishing our trip on Friday to Zacatecas.

Last night we had an amazing time having dinner with some old friends and some new friends as well. One of our supporting families that has been so amazing to us over the years wanted to see us while in town and reconnect. The entire time we have known then they have always been around Mexican people involving themselves in the Spanish ministry at our church and then in other areas as well. They told us of a family they had met this is from Zacatecas and they wanted us all to get together. So last night we all had dinner and it was awesome.

We were able to connect with Jorge y Susana and learn a lot about life in Zacatecas. They were able to tell us areas to look for a house, better ways to connect with people and even how to best reach them. Jorge comes from a Catholic background so he has a lot of insight and understand as to how to reach them. It was very insightful to us and helpful.

It’s awesome how God gives us these little events of encouragement to revive us and keep us going. Throughout the last weeks we have been so busy with life that we easily forget about purpose and the people. Thanks God.